Something New

Ya know… after a year in Africa, what used to seem strange is no longer strange. It all starts to become normal. Not much catches you off guard. It’s just a part of everyday life in Africa.

And then there are those rare occasions when it hits you again. Something fresh… something new… something never before seen. Well tonight my roommate and I went to the lovely movie theatre. Yes we have a great movie theatre in Africa… and it’s just across the street! So we settle into our seats and prepare for the movie as usual. We enjoy the first half of the movie. Nothing too odd. And then a lovely couple enters the theatre and settles in to enjoy the second half of the movie. I know you’re probably thinking… wait, did they just get here? Don’t they know they missed most of the movie? Did they pay full price to watch the end of a movie? But see, this is all a part of normal life here. Time is of no importance. You get there when you get there. You leave when you leave. Hakuna matata! No worries.

So the couple settles in for the last half of the movie…nothing surprising. And then it happens. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something scurry down the wall. I quickly alert Marissa and pick my feet up off the ground. Well she’s kind of thinking I’m crazy at this point and just seeing things.

She says, “What was it?”

“Ummm… I don’t know!”

“Was it big?”

“YES!!”

Well we have lots of lizards in and out of our buildings. Maybe a lizard just caught my eye. Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe I was going crazy. But the rest of the movie I kept one eye on the wall…just in case. Just as the movie was ending, there it goes again, back up the wall! Well this time I wasn’t the only crazy one. Marissa saw it too! And it was huge! No doubt about it. Definitely not a lizard! It was fuzzy! Did I mention huge?! We let out a little squeal and a burst of laughter. But we maintained our composure until the credits started to roll. Then we raced out of the theatre making sure nothing was following us.

After living in Africa for a year, strange things may become normal. But I will never be okay with huge, furry things crawling up and down my walls!

Summer Fun

Even though it’s technically winter here and the temperatures are dropping into the 70s, we can still call it summer! It has been quite a fun summer. The students have been away on vacation, but we have found lots to do in their absence. Here are a few highlights to the summer.

The arrival of our summer volunteer, crazy Katelyn Saylor!

A farewell party to all of our students as they headed back home for vacation

A trip to Dodoma to visit my friend Neema

A trip to Morogoro to visit my friend Asha

Of course a few trips to the beach

A visit at my friend Tina’s house with her family

A visit with my friend Dominica and her new baby, Mauree

A great two weeks with my wonderful college roommate, Denise, including a safari and trip to the beautiful island of Zanzibar

4th of July party at the American Embassy on the 6th of July… we’re still in Africa

Working at an orphanage with a volunteer team

Team Retreat… to the beach of course (We have to take advantage of the opportunities God has given us!)

A wild and crazy trip to Uganda to visit my friend Eleanor

And to top it all off, Marissa and I leave tomorrow for vacation in Italy. A wonderful end to a wonderful summer. Then it’s back to work… I promise Mom!

License, Registration, and Marriage License Please

Traffic police in Tanzania are an interesting thing. Their job description rarely includes enforcing the law. They do however set up random checkpoints along the road to check people’s official information. It doesn’t make much sense… but then again I’m in Africa, does anything make much sense?

So one day I was driving to visit a friend. As I was driving, I encountered a check point. Lucky me, I got pulled over. He asked for my license and I willingly gave it. He responded with, “Is this real?” Well of course it’s real! And if it’s fake, I’m surely not going to tell you that. He continues to check the blinkers on my car, which is the first time they have ever done this to me. Sadly, one of my blinkers was broken. He wasn’t too happy about that. I also had a broken side view mirror because some thieves tried to take it one night. He didn’t approve of that either. (Which I find funny considering every car I see driving around Dar looks like it’s about to fall apart. At least mine is all in one piece!) So we weren’t off to a very good start here.

He asked if I had a police report to prove that the thieves broke the mirror. Well, yes I have a police report, but it’s not with me. Well where is it? It’s at my office. And he says… where do you work? Now this can either be a good thing or a bad thing. If he likes Baptist people, I’m home free. If not, I could be in seriously trouble. But I proceeded to tell him, I work for the Baptist Mission of Tanzania. He responded with, Oh, do you know Jesus? And I said, Yes. Do you? He said, Tell me about him! So I then shared the gospel with the man. And he responded with, “You’re lying!” Uh oh! This situation is getting worse by the minute. So I tried to convince him I wasn’t lying and that all of it was in the Bible, which he said he believed in.

So after all of this, he finally looks at me and says, “Are you married?” Ha! Here it comes! This is what he was working towards the whole time. I chuckled and said No, not yet. I’m too young to marry. He said, No! You should be married and have two kids by now! I laughed and said I was waiting for God to bring me the right husband. He said, God has brought me to you. I want to marry you! I laughed even more and said, You don’t want to marry me! I’m a lazy mzungu. He said, But I like mzungu. I said, No you need to marry a nice Tanzanian woman who will work very hard. I won’t work very hard. I am too lazy. He says, It’s okay. I don’t like to work either. Haha. Surprise surprise!

At this point, I am getting more and more worried that he’s not going to return my license to me. But I politely turned down his nice marriage proposal. He asked for my number. I said no again and asked if I could leave. He smiled and said, It was nice to meet you. And praise the Lord, I drove off! Another fun-filled day in Africa.

The learning never ends...

A few weeks ago, my friend Lulu came over to visit. I taught her how to play Scrabble. That was an interesting experience. I only won by a few points (kinda sad considering I’m a native English speaker). But after Scrabble, she taught me how to play a Tanzanian card game very similar to Uno. This was quite the cultural experience. I had no idea that cards are played different in every country. Let me educate you. The order of the cards is very different here. For instance, the face cards are not the highest point value. On the contrary, they are the lowest. A king is worth 4 points, a jack is worth 3 points, a queen is worth 2 points, and an Ace is worth 1 point. They also call them wazungu (Swahili word for white people) instead of face cards. Or they refer to them by their letters only, K, J, Q, A. She didn’t realize the reason for the letter until I explained they were a King, Jack, Queen, and Ace. Does it show you much about the culture when they put the two male cards as more important than the female card? In the game we were playing, you wanted to discard your cards with a high point value first. Well it was quite an adjustment to realize that a 7 is much higher than an Ace.

My favorite part of playing the game was learning the Swahili words for the suits.

Spades – Jembe (English meaning - Hoe)
Diamonds – Kisu (English meaning - Knife)
Hearts – Kopa (English meaning – Love)

And my favorite!! Clubs – Mavi ya mbuzi which in English means goat poop. She had to tell me several times before I would believe her. And she proceeded to explain that the clubs looked like the poop of a goat. Have you ever been that close to a goat? She asked. J

Every day holds its own Tanzanian treasure. This day was goat poop.

Flat Tires, Baby Goats, and a little Parks and Rec

We roadtripped across Africa to get to our meetings in Kenya. It was quite the trip. The scenery was beautiful, changing nearly every minute. You could look out the right side and see mountains and on the left a desert plain. It was absolutely gorgeous and a tribute to the glory of God.

I was really excited that they let me drive part of the stretch. We were in a HUGE car and I was the only girl to drive. Don’t tell my Daddy though. I think he gave instructions about me not driving… but I must have missed those. While we were driving, I experienced my first flat tire. I had no idea what was going on. But with a seasoned male driver in the car he calmly told me to pull over. We pulled over in the most beautiful place. With mountains all around, the girls took pictures while the guys worked on the car. I tried to be helpful every now and then, but I think I was just in the way mostly.

While the guys worked, lots of little people came out of the woods to watch the action. They just sat and stared at the Wazungu caravan. Some little goat and cow herders made their way with their herds and just hung out. We made friends with the little guys and even got to pet the goat. Here’s a few pictures of our flat tire experience.

Marissa and I hard at work on the flat tire! Or taking pictures to document my first ever flat tire.

The men actually hard at work on the flat tire!

The perfect location for a flat tire! In the middle of God's beautiful creation.

Just a few of our newest friends.

And the cute little boy holding the cute baby goat.

I told you we made lots of new little friends!

And just in case you were curious, we arrived to Kenya safely. No more flat tires and nothing too dangerous! Karibu Kenya! (That's another new friend. I'm really good at making friends here!)

We drove past Mt. Kilimanjaro on the way, the tallest mountain in Africa. But with the clouds we couldn’t see all of it. But on the way home from Kenya, we flew over it. It was amazing. Here is the snow-topped mountain peeking through the clouds.

We had a great time in Kenya. We snuck away from our meetings a few times and had some fun in Nairobi. We even got to visit a park one day!

Fountain Fun! I think Africa makes me a little crazier every day. Or maybe I started out that way.

And the best part of all was getting to hang out with my Mom. If you don’t know her, you’re really missing out! She’s about the most fun anyone could be!

SURPRISE

This post is a little late. But I thought it was still necessary to share – my first African birthday. If you’re going to have a birthday, I suggest having it in Africa. It started in March and didn’t end until May. That’s the way to celebrate! While I was visiting my parents in March, we started the party off right with a few gifts and a day at a Lodge. With the African postal system, most people didn’t know when exactly to send the gifts. And like normal, they all arrived at various times. So I just continued to celebrate throughout the whole month of April and even in to May. But the highlight of my birthday this year was done by my wonderful roommate and dear friend, Marissa.

One Friday night I had plans with Eleanor. We were going to study the Bible at her room and then come back to my house for dinner. She had wanted to cook for us for a long time. So we planned to do it that night. Everything went smoothly, me totally unaware of what was about to happen. When we arrived back at our house, I noticed a friend’s car in the drive. My mind raced a million places to why they might be there, but it never hit the right reason. I went in the house, still totally unaware, and noticed a lot of food out on our dining room table. I looked at my three white friends sitting on the couch and said, “I’m so confused.” At that moment, about 30 people jumped out from everywhere yelling, “SURPRISE!” I was stunned. So stunned I almost started to cry. I have had many attempted surprise parties in my four years in college, and I think nearly everyone failed. And to think that my roommate was able to invite all my friends and fix every detail without me knowing was remarkable. We are together nearly 24 hours a day. I have no idea how she pulled it off.

But we had a great time at the party. We laughed, talked, ate, and even played some of my favorite games. Here are a few pictures of my precious surprise party!

This is just after I first arrived. I'm still in shock. And running around the room like crazy trying to remember everyone who was there. They all hugged me when I came. But I wasn't paying enough attention to actually look at them. These are some of my sweet girls!

Me and lots of girls. They're all great! You should come meet them.

Louie kept sneaking in to our girl pictures! Shame on him!

This is my wonderful friend Lulu. She is studying to be a doctor.

This is Eleanor, the girl who was in on the surprise the whole time, and her roommate Lydia. Lydia got ready for the party while I was in the room studying with Eleanor. I was totally clueless as to why she was dressing up so cute.

Me and the boys!

This is me and my cake. If you can't tell, the cake is actually a big bowl of muffins. They knew there would be a lot of people. So they made lots of muffins instead of a really big cake. So they stuck all the candles in different muffins. The Tanzanians didn't know any different and loved the muffins. They are always asking for more!




But after the surprise party, the strangest thing happened. Reality hit. And it hit hard. I was so honored that my friends came to celebrate with me. I was blessed that they loved me enough to come. I realized that God had brought me here and was using me in people’s lives. What a blessing! But I also realized that I had friends and family back home who really wished they could celebrate my birthday with me. I saw the blessings of two amazing families. A family in Africa and a family in America. But I also saw the curse of it. Those two worlds will never collide. They will always be two worlds. My friends in Africa will never know my friends in America. My friends in America will never know my friends in Africa. And this may sound crazy to you, but that hurts deep inside. There are two families in this world that I love dearly. They are both a gift from God. But my heart aches wishing you could meet each other. So I will continue to tell stories. I will continue to show pictures. And I will pray that each family will understand a little bit about life on the other side of the world.

Game Night

This semester we decided to have a fellowship each month with the students involved in Bible studies. The first month we watched a movie together. They always love watching movies. Well in March, we decided to try something a little crazy and plan a game night. At Christmas time, Marissa and I tried a few games with our friends at our Christmas party. They didn’t go quite as planned. Apparently, there are lots of cultural differences when playing games. So we just prayed that this game night would be a success despite those differences. And praise God who is faithful! It was amazing!

As usual, the students rolled in late. We were a little worried no one was going to even show. But they did. And for the first few hours, it was only girls at the party. We were expecting our guy leaders to come, but most of them couldn’t make it. So we had a great time playing silly games with the girls. And they had a great time as well. It was definitely the talk of the weekend!

So here are a few pictures from our crazy game night!

A crazy game of Gorilla - Man - Gun! Gorilla beats the man. Man beats the gun. Gun beats the gorilla. You tie, you die! 1 - 2 - 3. Looks like the gorilla beat the man in this game.

Hmm... who knows what this is? Maybe a gorilla and a man. Or maybe that's a gun. That's a tough call. Whatever it is... they're having fun!

Janet and Neema, two roommates taking a break from all the games.

Marissa and Angela - silly girls. Angela's boyfriend was on his way. So we were being extra silly for her. :)

Here is a picture of our intense game of spoons. We are all very focused! The girls loved this game. I think we will be playing it a lot more!

Championship spoons! Very intense. And as the reigning champion, there was lots of pressure on me. So I thought it was only appropriate that I bow out and let Angela win one time. Haha.

This is a picture of the craziest and most fun game we played. Each person has a partner. One partner gets in the inner circle and the other gets in the outer. Then the two cirlces walk in opposite directions. The caller calls out two different body parts. Then the two partners have to find each other and touch those two things - such as Elbow to Elbow. The students loved this game. This picture is them walking around in their crazy circles!

Crazy Fun Times!

All the girls we love so much!!

God Stories

Our God is faithful. Always faithful to give me a swift kick in the behind. Two times in the same week He reminded me that He was there and that I should start listening. So I thought you might enjoy these stories. (If you read my latest update, these names may sound familiar. But it’s the background to the stories.)

Story #1 - So I have been meeting with a dear friend Janet to study Women of the Bible. When we first met she told me that she believed in many different things. Her faith was a mix of Islam and Christianity. Since that point, she has been faithfully studying the Bible and the Spirit has been showing her that Jesus is the only way. So recently, she informed me that she didn’t consider herself a Muslim. I wasn’t sure if that meant she had actually received Christ as her Savior or what. But I realized that I’m not the ultimate judge. So I just kept trusting in the Lord and praying that He would bring her unto Himself. While I was attending a meeting with other missionaries one weekend, God clearly told me to talk to Janet about baptism. This would be a clear sign of her obedience to Christ. So on the way home I was praying and thinking about how to introduce the topic of baptism. We have been studying women of the Bible and we had just finished Ruth. So I tried to think of a woman in the Bible who was baptized. The best example I could come up with was Lydia. But Ruth to Lydia seemed like quite a jump. Well Tuesday rolled around quickly which was the day of our Bible study. That morning I had little time to prepare so I decided to stick with the originally planned study on Hannah and that we would talk about Lydia next week when I had more time to prepare. When I arrived in Janet’s room we spent the first hour just talking about life. About the time we were going to start the study she says, “So I was reading this Christian newspaper the other day about Lydia. I didn’t read much of it. But do you know the story of Lydia?” I couldn’t help but laugh and say a little prayer of forgiveness all at the same time. So God’s plan prevailed and we talked about Lydia that day. We continued to talk about baptism during our next few studies and she is praying for clarity on this subject. Pray that she will choose to follow the Lord in obedience no matter what the cost is. Pray that she will be able to stand firm under the persecution from her family and friends.

Story #2 – We have a sweet young house worker named Selina. She comes three days a week to help around the house. She is amazing and we have developed quite a friendship. Back in November I was journaling and I felt in my heart that I needed to share my faith with Selina. She knew that we were here doing Bible studies with students, so I thought it strange that I didn’t share any truth with her. But like the sinner that I am, I didn’t obey God’s calling. I was very nervous about trying to talk in Swahili with her about my faith. So I kept it on my to-do list, but conveniently ignored it every day. Around February, I felt the same call on my heart. This time I prayed even more about it. I was paralyzed by fear because of my lack of Swahili. I knew it would flop if I tried to study with her in a foreign language. “I’m just not good enough,” I kept saying to God. One day in March, I was standing in the kitchen talking to her. We started to talk about church and I asked her what she had learned that Sunday. She told me that at her church they talk about the Word of God, but not the Bible. I was a little confused by this statement, because the Bible is the Word of God. But I soon learned that she hears about God at church, but never really connects it to Scripture in the Bible. Immediately, I turned to God and said, “Okay… I see what you’re doing here.” Well if she hadn’t already opened the door up enough, she just kept opening it even wider. She started to ask about my studies at the University. She asked how I do them. And eventually, if I do them in Swahili. I laughed and told her that she knows my Swahili is not good enough for that. Then I turned back to God and said, “Okay, Lord, I will follow wherever You lead.” So I told Selina I would be happy to try and study in Swahili. Since then, we have had two wonderful Bible studies in Swahili. And she has been faithful to tell these stories to her friends and family. I am so excited to see what God does through Selina’s faithfulness. Please pray for both of us as we continue to try and communicate with one another.

Praise God that He is faithful, even when we are not. I also thank God that these reminders of His calling were rather gentle ones. He carefully and gently guided me back onto His path when I tried to stray. I pray that I will continue to walk each step in His will.

Stand Firm

Yesterday I was studying the Holy Spirit with two of my friends. It was exciting as we discussed the passages and I could see their eyes being opened to new truth. But it was also heart breaking to see them realize how vastly different the Truth of the Word is compared to what is being taught in their churches. These two girls are seeking the Way of Christ, but they are being led astray by those who claim to be “Christians.” As we were talking, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Matthew 7:15.

“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

Shouldn’t church be the place to go for answers? Shouldn’t pastors be leading people to truth? Shouldn’t fellow Christians be encouraging and building up the body? But in so many places, the church parades around in sheep’s clothing while it devours people like ravenous wolves. I know that the church is full of sinners and it will only reach complete perfection when Christ returns, but until then where do I tell my friends to worship in spirit and truth?

My heart is broken for my students. It is broken for the churches in Tanzania. It is broken for the student fellowships that exist on campus. It is broken for all of those who claim to be Christian. It is broken for all of those who claim to be “saved.” But as my heart breaks, the only thing I know to do is go before the Father. The only thing I know to do is plead for these people. The only thing I know to do is pray that they will continue in His word and become true disciples of Him, that they will know the truth and the truth will make them free. (John 8:31-32)

My friends told me yesterday, “It’s just so confusing, Whitney. Everyone is saying something different.” I wish that wasn’t true. I wish that the world wasn’t screaming a million different things at us. I wish that false prophets didn’t drag us astray. I wish that our churches weren’t teaching lies. But this has been happening for hundreds of years. Jesus told us to expect this. Jesus told us it will continue. So if this is the way it is going to be, how do we fight it? We fight with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, the truth. But we can only use the truth when we know it. We can only know it when we study it. So it all comes back to where we started yesterday – studying the Word. So I will encourage my friends to keep studying truth so they can be prepared to fight. But I also want to encourage you, are you prepared to fight?

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, stand firm.” Ephesians 6:10-13.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

*Sorry such a long post, but stick around. It might be a good one!

One Sunday afternoon, I visited with my friend Neema. She attends a college of education that is a branch of UDSM. She wanted to show me the room where she stays and her college. So we met at UDSM and drove to her college. We spent some time in the room she rents from a family drinking sodas and talking. I had told her at the beginning of our day that I had another appointment at 3 pm. So at about 2:20 we started leaving her house.

As we left, she told me there was one other place she wanted to show me. We walked for about ten minutes and arrived at another little house. She wanted to introduce me to the family that she used to live with and show me her first room. We went in and sat down. I kept checking my watch and trying to give hints to Neema that I still had an appointment at 3. But we still just kept sitting there. After some time of sitting there and watching the TV without really talking, I finally looked at Neema and she asked if I needed to leave. So as we started to leave, the man of the house stopped us at the door. I was trying to follow the conversation with my limited Swahili, but I wasn’t too sure what was happening. Finally he looked at me and said, “You can’t leave. In our culture, if a guest comes, she must stay for food. So we have started to prepare food for you. Please stay with us longer.” I tried to explain to him that I had a friend who would be waiting for me at 3. We meet every Sunday at 3 and she is going to expect me. Well that didn’t seem to matter too much to him. He explained to me that Africans do not keep time like Americans do. He said he knows that time is money to me, but that I must stay. Well there wasn’t much I could do from that point. He had already pulled the “culture card” and I couldn’t offend the culture. So I told him that I needed to walk to my car and call my friend to inform her I would be late. He was very excited about my decision.

So Neema and I returned to the house and waited for the food. We sat around with several people and watched TV. There were only two chairs in the house. As the guest, I was given one and everyone else sat on the floor. We were finally served traditional African food – ugali (wet, tasteless, mushy bread), fish, and chicken. The servings are always more than I can handle and after already having lunch and a coke, it was a struggle to finish my food. Neema ate hers in a few minutes. It took me probably 20 to finish mine. They laughed and made jokes about how slow I was. And that if I was African I would never get enough food, because everyone else would finish all the food before I even started eating mine.

While we sat in the room, there wasn’t much talking between us. But there was a lot of trying to hand me the baby to hold. She wasn’t too fond of me though. Since I was the first white person she had ever seen in her life, she was actually quite terrified. The parents kept trying to convince her to like me, but they weren’t too successful. Each time she would kick and scream and I would feel terrible. They were torturing the poor child on my behalf. I finally learned that if I could keep some distance between us, she would be okay. She would wave at me and say hi, but if I came too close she would start to scream. Then we finally found our common bond, my car. She enjoyed climbing on my car and running around it. So we finally let her inside the car at the drivers seat. I told her in Swahili that she could drive if she wanted to. Everyone laughed and her parents quickly told me No. She was 18 months. Did they really think I was going to let her drive? So by the end of the day, we became friends because of my car and she even let me hold her for a minute.

After staying what I guess was the appropriate amount of time, we finally left the house. They welcomed me back as always and promised that the baby would like me more next time. As we left, Neema told me she wanted to take me to her college as well. At this point, it was already 4 and I was extremely late for my appointment. So I figured, what will a few more minutes hurt? So we toured Neema’s college and even met some of her friends. We spent some time sitting outside under trees and enjoying the breeze. The whole time I was thinking… Does she even care what time it is? Obviously it wasn’t an issue.

I finally left Neema and went to meet my other friend. I arrived to her room only 2 ½ hours late. I explained to her what happened and she laughed a lot. We spent a few minutes saying hi to each other and then I headed back home.

It was a long day, but a really wonderful one. My time with Neema was a blessing even if it did interfere with what I had planned for the day. I was reminded of the concept of time. According to my new friend, time is money to Americans. I’m not sure I want time to be the most valuable thing in my life. Is time really mine anyway? Or is it just another gift from God? I pray that my time will be God’s time, that my time will be in His hands, that my time will only be used to accomplish His work.

This day reminded me of an old Chicago song that I remember listening to with my Dad when I was a kid. “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?”

Welcome to Africa!

There’s never a dull moment in Africa. I thought you’d be interested to hear the latest excitement around here.

My wonderful friend informed me that she sent me a package back in November. So each trip to our office was filled with anxiety… Do we have any packages? We left each time saddened by our lack of packages. But we still had hope that someday that package would arrive.

Well… when January finally rolled around, I was beginning to worry about the package. Thinking it might never make it to Africa. Or if it had made it to Africa, it might never make it to my post office box. So returning home without packages each time diminished our hope little by little.

Until one day… two months after the package left the States, it arrived in our office. Marissa and I were ecstatic. We raced home to open the big box. We found lots of goodies in the box… books, Velveeta, dry erase boards!! But one thing we found was quite perplexing. There was an empty bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups. We thought… Well that’s just mean. Why would someone send us an EMPTY bag of Reese’s?! Is this some kind of joke?! So we read the letter concerning the contents of the box. She didn’t mention anything about the empty bag of Reese’s. So we started to examine the box a little more. It didn’t take us long to find the source of our problem. It seems that a sweet little rat chewed his way through the first box, then the second box, proceeded to consume every bit of the Reese’s including the wrappers, and then made his way back out of the box! Thankfully, he made his way back out of the box. Or that would have definitely been an interesting package!

Marissa and I laughed for a while, cursed the rats for a while, and took some pictures for your enjoyment. It turns out that the box arrived in Tanzania only a month after being shipped. But then it sat in the customs office for another month waiting to be processed. We imagine the rat found his Christmas present during that month long customs process. As my Tanzanian friend would say, “Welcome to Africa!”

Will you marry me?

So marriage proposals seem fairly common to me now. I think I’ve lost count at the number of guys who are interested. While some days it may be a nuisance, most days I just like to consider it a great flattery. I forget the fact that I have white skin and they are probably only interested in a ticket to America or some money. Rather I like to think that it must be my undeniable beauty or amazing charm.

So I thought I would share a funny story for the day concerning marriage proposals. One day, Marissa and I were leaving the local shopping mall. (I use that term lightly, but it is considered the first mall in Tanzania). As we walked out to our car, one of the guards followed us. They like to try to use their English with the pretty girls, but today he was struggling just a bit. He stuttered out, “How is your wife?! I mean…. Hmmm…. Your boy? How is your boy?” Realizing his mistake I said, “My husband?” And he said, “Yeah!” I responded with, “Oh he’s great! How’s your wife?” He said, “Oh, no wife. But maybe her?” while pointing to Marissa. I said, “Oh yeah! She’d make a great wife!” Marissa quickly jumped in the car and scolded me for offering her up as a potential wife. We laughed as we drove off.

Needless to say, we enjoy lots of laughs in Tanzania. Whether it’s marriage proposals or chaotic traffic or crazy Swahili, it’s either laughing or crying. So we like to choose laughing!